The House at Spinners End
by Mech Anon
Summary: The house stood out from its gentrified surroundings. Her parents turned their nose up at the house and the other children told ghost stories about it; which made it her safe place. She thinks she was being abnormal the first time she met the Professor.


This is inspired by the line "Honestly Hermione do you think all teachers are saints or something." From Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.

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The house stood out from its gentrified surroundings. When her parents had brought their Victorian terraced house it would have looked like any other house on the street, the peeling paint and rotting door the same as theirs had been. Her earliest memories were filled with the stench of the stinking barely flowing river and the haze of midges in their weed infested garden - a veritable jungle for a toddler to explore. Now her parents turned their nose up at the house and the other children told ghost stories about it; which made it her safe place.

For a determined child it was no effort to swing herself over gate and up over the coal cellar on to the low sloping roof of the back porch when she was too much of a know-it-all swot bookworm for her peers or did something too abnormal for her parents to ignore the strange things that happened around her. There she would curl with a book as her only comfort through howling wind and torrential downpours sometimes falling asleep and having to run hungry to school the next day. When the weather was fine sure feet and nibble hands would carry her up to the eaves of the house. There were house martins nesting on one of the corners, so used to her that they barely twitched when she climbed past then to clamber up on the roof and curl against the chimney.

She thinks she was being abnormal the first time she met the Professor. It was June, a wet muggy heat had settled over the city periodically descending into thunder storms. She had fallen asleep under her book sticky with sweat and woken to a shout cold and rain wet. A large long fingered hand had grabbed her and manhandled her down from her perch leaving her book behind and some of her skin. Shivering and scared she stood in front of a glaring dark man dressed in archaic academic robes.

Then she must have done something abnormal - the Professor said it was accidental magic and she would 'would get over that annoying tendency with practice and unfortunately time'. The Professor was against the rickety fence where it gave way to the river and she was running or trying to but the Professor shouted something and she was moving through treacle. There was a tap on her head and then nothing.

She woke up warm and dry with two adult voices speaking; she half recognised the silky drawl of the male voice as the same one that had woke her before but not the second cold clear upper class woman's voice. She sighed with relief, not her parents, then tensed up when she realised they knew she was awake.

"First you feed the child." the woman said, there was a trickle of laughter in her voice like she was finding her and the Professor's discomfort amusing. "And ask her what her name is?"

"Hermione Granger, it's embroidered in the back of her cardigan." The Professor said coming closer and placing something with a clatter near her. "Sit up and stop pretending to be asleep, you little trespasser."

Her stomach gurgled loudly and she made a great pretence of waking from a deep sleep surveying the room from behind half closed lids. The woman, the Lady Malfoy, was elegant, white blonde and dressed in the same understated style that her mother coveted. She sat like a queen holding court in a high backed wood chair, a half smile played across her face as she watched Hermione's show. The dish smelt wonderful to Hermione's stomach. She thinks maybe she had been very abnormal that week for she couldn't remember having seen her parents or eating. The Professor and his guest certainly seemed to think she was a starving beast as she fell upon the broth and bread.

When she had finished eating the Lady Malfoy spoke again, "Why were you trespassing in Professor Snape's house?"

"I wasn't in his house!" Hermione protested. "I've always come here. I didn't know anyone lived here!"

"The more important question is how she got through my wards not why the ruffian was sleeping on my roof." The Professor drawled.

"Sleeping on your roof Severus!" The Lady Malfoy's voice rose. Standing she brushed her long skirt into place. "She's obviously a muggleborn. Knows nothing of our world but has some ability and sufficient need or curiosity to walk through your wards." She stared at Hermione like a speck of dirt. "What is it then, curiosity or need?"

"Need." The Professor said firmly, "now what do we do with her?"

"We?" The Lady Malfoy asked. "Surely you can deal with her."

"And have her return to my roof?" The Professor said. "No, we shall have to do something about her, Narcissa."

"You called me, Severus, not my husband nor any of his friends. What do you propose?" She asked.

"An experiment." He replied. "Muggles and muggleborns have no more love for each other than sane purebloods and muggles. Teach a muggleborn manners and they may not be offensive to our kind."

"Who do you intend to teach your experiment?" The Lady Malfoy asked.

"You are the obvious choice." The Professor said as Hermione screwed up courage to try and slip passed them. Quick as a flash the Lady Malfoy's hand clasped around her shoulder holding her captive.

Catching Hermione's chin in her other hand the Lady Malfoy twisted her face as though she were a dubious horse on sale. "Not completely hideous." The Lady said, "I suppose if she can't learn there's a slight possibility of marriage to a lower family." There was a pause while the Lady Malfoy debated and Hermione tried to pull away. "You mind her for the summer. If the child can learn I will continue her education. I suppose we must to something to curb her tongue and keep her out of trouble." The Lady's hand released Hermione's chin and was grasping a light stick, "Tacere." The stick flicked and twisted between Hermione and the Professor, "Tutoris puerom, et servire. Custos autem puero paedagogus et custos." The stick disappeared and the Lady asked, "Don't you have somewhere else to be?" pushing Hermione towards the door.

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The End or maybe the beginning.

Concrit is love.


End file.
